Jazz Flashcards
What is the political and cultural history of New Orleans?
Founded by the French with very few blacks living here; melting pot of European, Spanish, French, and Ango influences. Language and customs remain primarily French and there is a strong creole culture
What is the creole culture?
Located in New Orleans; it is a Spanish and French blending. Creole meant “European descent” born in the new world but now has racial connotation.
Who are the Creoles of color?
Located in New Orleans; they are a mix race level of society. They often spoke with a French way, had their own opera houses, and even owned slaves.
What are the black codes?
Limits the rights of Creoles of color, “one drop rule” = if you have one drop of black blood then you are black
European contributions to jazz
- Instruments = string instruments, brass instruments, piano, clarinet, saxophones
- Harmony
- Extended musical forms = multi part song forms
- Notation = writing it down
New Orleans
The most cosmopolitan city in the world
African contributions to jazz
- Expressive qualities = moans, growls, voices that are imitated by instruments
- Cyclical forms = extended things by cycling parts
- Improvisation and call & response
- Polyrhythms and syncopation
New Orleans style
- Collective improvisation = weaving lines in and out at the same time. Everyone improvises their own roles.
- Instrumental roles = tuba played two-beat chords, piano and banjo played off-beat chords that pulled down melody, and drums played marching style
Who is Buddy Bolden?
New Orleans style trumpet player who never made a recording so no one realized he existed. Thought to be the standard early jazz ensemble because he married string band and brass band
Original Dixieland Jazz Band (ODJB)
New Orleans style; Audiences went crazy for this because they never heard anything like it.
What is the great migration?
Blacks out of the south. They are going for jobs and moving up to Detroit because they are still secondary slaves.
Who is Louis Armstrong?
Chicago style and King Oliver’s prodigy; he was a pioneering jazz trumpeter who played society gigs and dance gigs that really revolutionized jazz.
What are the influential hot 5 and hot 7 recordings?
Louis Armstrong wrote these and revolutionized jazz
Jazz became a “soloist’s art” due to whom?
Louis Armstrong; there was interaction between soloist and band versus band as a whole.
Louis Armstrong as an entertainer
This is his secondary career by the 40s
Louis Armstrong as a cultural ambassador
He presented a nonthreatening demeanor and was the most famous American in the world. He spread democracy through music
Scat singing
Singing without words, using the voice as an instrument
Who is Billie Holiday?
A jazz singer, one of “Louis’s children. She sounds just like him and lived a jazz life personified. All of the hardship came through in her singing.
Who is Ella Fitzgerald?
Great jazz singer who had a similar upbringing as Billie Holiday but was not self-destructive. She was a good improviser and s huge scar singer and preferred small groups.
What is swing music?
The pop music of the 1930s and 1940s?
